It probably hasn’t escaped your attention that the Prime Minister of New Zealand, John Key, is often an autocratic leader who has very little concern for acquiring a consensus from the people he rules over…Isn’t that consequently the antithesis of a true democracy, in other words a dictatorship?

Although some Green party supporters may have been disappointed that both Robertson and Cunliffe effectively ruled out Norman from the finance position, they certainly didn’t appreciate John Key going on the offensive in such an underhanded way.

Bennett proclaiming that she’s getting tough on abusers when government policy is directly contributing to the causes of abuse is highly hypocritical. Clearly the government should be looking towards policy that will stop the cycle of abuse from occurring, not perpetuating it with more severe legislation that simply won’t work.

It astounds me that it has taken 15 months before Fonterra’s management even cottoned on to the fact that 38 tonnes of whey protein concentrate was contaminated with a bacterium that causes botulism, a toxin that can lead to paralysis and death.

It seems highly inappropriate for an employee of a Minister of the Crown to edit material on Wikipedia concerning that Minister and then for that employee to try and hide the fact. There’s a huge conflict of interest here, which is strictly prohibited against under Wikipedia’s terms and conditions…

This week it was revealed the so-called philanthropist was charged for physically abusing a young woman in 2002, a charge he didn’t contest apparently because of prohibitive court costs. Considering he’s worth an estimated $900 million this excuse seems highly suspect.

What this really all comes down to is trust…do you trust the government, and more specifically one person within the National party who has a number of vested interests, to do the right thing? I sure as hell don’t and for good reason.

Clearly somebody as morally corrupt as Slater wasn’t a suitable candidate to be editor of The Truth, which was purportedly attempting to clean up its act at the time…what on earth was management thinking?

Why New Zealand needs so many spying agencies when there have been very few prosecutions in New Zealand for the things their mandates are meant to cover is something that will likely go unanswered. But one thing is clear; the public is paying a huge price for these agencies that are effectively undermining our civil liberties.

Depending on how this all plays out, National could be a very lonely party on the opposition benches after the next election. Even with the faux support of other centre right parties, the Natz are unlikely to win the next election.

“While the IRD has attained funding of $1.5 billion for new computers, farmers have $500 million for new irrigation and sports has all the funding, facilities and media coverage it could ever require, a lack of proper finance and promotion of New Zealand music will ensure NZMM will never reach its full potential.”

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand that such practices are potentially very dangerous, especially when there’s no monitoring of Radium 226 levels on the farms themselves or in the milk they produce.

It’s a choice between increasing environmental pollution, to the extent that people become ill and die, or harnessing nature to provide all the clean energy we could ever require. The choice is also between having domestic energy security and fighting more wars in foreign lands for oil.